Silence Means...?

Since the Mitchell report became available to the public, naming a few former Nats as well as our brand new shiny starting catcher, who was fingered as a user and distributor, the front office has said approximately nothing until last night. In a press release which was reported by MLB.com's Bill Ladson, Stan Kasten effectively said nothing in a whole lot of words.

Kasten claimed that he couldn't discuss Lo Duca or Logan for legal and club reasons, so he basically gave us nothing, saying that he was sad to have seen the breadth of the report, and that there were many names that they didn't have enough evidence to include. Everyone's concerns about the report itself are out there, so I'm just going to ignore that, but what does this mean for the Nats, specifically?

There have been a number of guys, former Nat Gary Bennett included, who have come out and said that yes, they did it, and it was a big mistake. I can't support those fellas enough. Not being strictly illegal by MLB's rules, it would have been a hard decision to make for anyone, and I don't really blame the guys who made it, as long as they admit it and recognize it is and was a problem.

Lo Duca's camp, on the other hand, has said absolutely nothing. Ladson is sad because they won't return his calls, and the team won't give us even a morsel of gossip. Is Lo Duca still the team's starting catcher next year? Certainly it's too late for any kind of punishment, so any decision to basically bench him would be a moral decision by the team and its management.

I can't see that the team will do this, rather, they'll probably say something about bygones being bygones, and have him start anyway, so as to put the best (though that's debatable, too) team on the field. It will be interesting to see which direction they go with this. At least we know Nick Johnson can't be on HGH, considering the rate at which he heals.

Oh, and I didn't update just for this, but the Nats signed utility man Pete Orr and lefty reliever (and serious advocate of snack time) Ray King to minor league deals.